Newsweek
Texas GOP Meets Group Suggesting Death Penalty for Women Who Seek Abortions
Story by Khaleda Rahman
• 2d • 3 min read
Demonstrators rally against anti-abortion and voter suppression laws at the Texas State Capitol on October 2, 2021 in Austin, Texas.© Montinique Monroe/Getty Images
Texas
Democrats have released a leaked video, saying it shows Texas
Republicans supporting the death penalty for women who seek abortions at a meeting held by an anti-abortion group.
The video shows Hood County Constable Scott London, Hood County GOP Chair Steve Biggers and Hood County GOP Chair candidate Greg Harrell attending a meeting held by Abolish Abortion Texas (AATX) in Granbury in January, according to a news release from the Texas
Democratic Party.
Newsweek has contacted London, Biggers, Harrell and the Texas
Republican Party for comment via email. AATX has been contacted through a contact form on its website.
The video, which was originally streamed on
Facebook, was obtained by Hood County Democrats Chair Adrienne Quinn Martin.
"If you want to know where the 'pro-life' movement is headed, watch this," Martin
wrote on X, formerly
Twitter, alongside a seven-minute video consisting of clips from the meeting.
"Many of our elected officials were in attendance. Including school board, constables and at least one county commissioner. Not one person pushes back or questions an agenda that advocates women possibly receiving the death penalty for abortion, including pregnant minors."
Texas is among 14 states that have banned abortion in almost all circumstances since the
U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. In Texas, doctors who provide an abortion can face criminal charges that carry penalties of up to life in prison.
They can also face lawsuits from private citizens, who are empowered to sue a person who helps a woman obtain an abortion. The laws do not threaten the mother with any legal consequences.
The video appears to show Paul Brown, the director of policy for AATX, saying the group wants women who have abortions to be prosecuted for murder.
Newsweek has not independently verified the video of the event.
"Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life," he said, per the video. "The same penalty for harming or killing a born person is also imposed by God in his law for killing a preborn person."
At another point in the video, he said: "If someone came in here and murdered one of people here, they should be charged with murder. We simply take the exception that currently exists under the Texas penal code that defines murder and then says abortion is not murder, we removed that."
He said women who seek abortions are "real human beings," but that "their lives don't matter more than the babies they are killing."
Several audience members also suggested that pregnant women and doctors who perform abortions should be "held accountable" to the highest extent of the law, according to Texas Democrats.
Brown is heard saying the AATX is against emergency contraception like the Plan B pill, saying that it is used "to terminate or kill a baby prior to implantation—that is an abortion."
He said that IVF should also be considered a form of abortion, saying that those who destroy fertilized eggs are "terminating or destroying a human life."
He said the group would also "never endorse or be OK with abortions in the instance of incest or rape."
Addressing concerns about prosecuting women who seek abortions, Brown said: "No, I don't want any women to have abortions. And the good news is that when you treat abortion like murder, that we should expect it to decrease significantly."
Touting AATX's support of a number of candidates this election season, Brown added: "We have a whole bunch of candidates who are running today who have expressed their willingness to sign on to abolition [of abortion] as well. I am very excited about the upcoming session."
In a statement, Texas Democratic Party Chair Gilberto Hinojosa said: "The fact that Texas Republicans are meeting with people willing to send pregnant women and doctors to Death Row should terrify every person in Texas.
"Make no mistake: Texas Republicans will strip women of their basic healthcare rights and will not stop at just banning abortion. They will punish women and doctors for seeking and performing basic health care, they will ban IVF and they will create a hostile and inhumane state. All of these candidates should be ashamed of themselves. This isn't Texas, but this is the Republican party of Texas."
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